Friday, 25 September 2015

How Volkswagen was caught

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)......to do the first ever evaluation of the tailpipe emissions of diesel cars in America made by European manufacturers.
They tested three cars: a BMW X5, Volkswagen Jetta and Volkswagen
Passat, while travelling over 2400kms on each car to get their results.
After driving from Los Angeles to Seattle and back they noticed
something odd about their Passat. Going by Volkswagen’s claims, it
should easily have let out the least amount of pollution between those
three cars — it had a more modern catalytic reduction system which is
meant to convert toxic fumes into safer ones — but that wasn’t the case.
The nitrogen oxide that came out of the Passat was in fact 20 times
more than the baseline levels permitted by the California Air Resources
Board.
The team was puzzled. There was no way it could be wrong. They
triple-checked the accuracy of their equipment after the Volkswagen
Jetta they tested showed readings 30 times more than the claimed
pollution rating.
The BMW, though, gave off the exact results they expected.
At the time, the team had no idea why the cars were emitting so much
pollution… “...We didn’t point and say, ‘Volkswagen has a defeat
device’,” Thiruvengadam told Autoblog. ......"